


Dismantle the Sun

by Mount_Seleya



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief, John Whump, Kübler-Ross Stages, M/M, Not Britpicked, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Kink Meme, The Three Garridebs, Vulnerable Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mount_Seleya/pseuds/Mount_Seleya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a gunshot leaves John in critical condition, Sherlock holds vigil beside his hospital bed, slowly unravelling as the night progresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dismantle the Sun

**7:34PM**  
  
Warmth blooms against Sherlock's fingers as he compresses his bunched-up scarf firmly against John's left thigh. His hands are trembling now, cold, ghost-pale things powerless to stop the vivid red of John's blood from pulsing out of him with every beat of his heart and seeping purple-black into the soft blue cotton of the scarf.  
  
"That's it," John grits out, strained but steady. "Keep pressing down."  
  
Sherlock swallows and nods. The air in the tiny cellar is chalk-dry and stale; his throat feels pinhole-tight. "John," he manages to say, and as he meets the pain-crinkled gaze below him, he knows that his mask has cracked.  
  
"Keep pressing," John says again, just a hoarse shred of a whisper. "Help's coming."  
  
Then, with a rattling exhalation, John slips into unconsciousness, and Sherlock swallows an anguished sound.

 

* * *

 

 **10:08PM**  
  
Crossing his arms over his chest, Sherlock shifts back in the chair, the vinyl cushion screeching in protest. The cuffs of his coat are stiff with dried blood; its heavy metallic scent assails his nostrils as he draws a long breath.  
  
In the hospital bed in front of him, John lies connected to a bevy of machines, eyes closed and face ashen.  
  
" _No_ ," Sherlock tells him, the word falling from his lips like a stone, hard and solid. "You are not dying. You will not die."

 

* * *

  
  
**11:49PM**  
  
Sherlock prods at the takeaway curry forced into his hands by Lestrade over half an hour ago with a plastic fork. "Well, John Watson, what do you have to say for yourself now?" he demands in a sour undertone.  
  
The only sounds he hears in response are the beep of the heart monitor and the drone of nurses down the hall.  
  
Springing out of his chair, Sherlock storms over to the bin and hurls the curry into it, then returns to John's bedside. "I warned you that Winter might have a gun," he hisses, leaning over the side-rail of the bed so that he's looming in John's face. "But, no, you charged ahead, more bravery than sense. _Typical_. I expect you'll be left with an actual limp this time."

 

* * *

  
  
**1:32AM**  
  
Sherlock's knees are pressed to the side of the bed, the hard, rough-textured plastic of the rail digging into his chin. Two of his fingers trail gently along the slack curl of John's hand where it rests atop the scratchy blanket.  
  
"I understand now. I'm not sorry that I had to do it, but I know what it must have been like, seeing me on the ledge."  
  
A minute passes, punctuated only by the thready wheeze of John's breathing, the shrill tweet of the heart monitor.  
  
"Please, John," Sherlock says at last, letting his large hand close loosely around John's smaller one. "Don't let go. Hang on. _Fight_. I swear I'll find ways to be a better man. Just don't let go. Don't slip away. _Please_."

 

* * *

  
  
**3:19AM**  
  
A single tear cuts across the bridge of Sherlock's nose to dampen the blanket rasping against the side of his face. Left hand gripping the pushed-down side-rail of the bed, he traces his right index finger around the helix of John's ear, whispers, "There are things I haven't told you, John. Words beyond my natural capacity to utter. And now I fear it's too late."  
  
John looks so pale and still and small. Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut and lets a shuddering sob skitter out of him.  
  
"I am adrift, John," he confesses a moment later. "Please. Don't leave me. I don't think I shall be able to bear losing you."

 

* * *

  
  
**3:50AM**  
  
Breath gusts over the tips of Sherlock's steepled fingers as he releases a sigh through his nostrils. His gaze surveys the landscape of John's face, etches the round nose, thin lips, and firm jaw into the innermost hall of his palatial mind.  
  
Sometime in the last half hour, the choking weight in his chest became a dull, aching emptiness.  
  
Allowing his hands to fall to the armrests of the chair, he says, "I've never put any stock in the notion of an afterlife. I don't expect we shall ever meet again, John, but I consider it an honour to have been your friend."

 

* * *

  
  
**4:26AM**  
  
The door of the hospital room swings open with a _creak_. Sherlock hears a familiar stride sweep over to stand beside his chair, then the soft, hollow _thump_ of the ferrule of an umbrella hitting the worn linoleum of the floor.  
  
"I am fully aware my presence will not influence his prognosis," he preemptively tells Mycroft.  
  
"I was in your position once. But of course you wouldn't remember, dear brother, given your...condition...at the time."  
  
"John's sister will be here with the first train from Exeter," Sherlock says, forcing a change of subject. "I imagine she'll object when it comes time to unhook him, but his living will is quite specific, and I intend to see his wishes honoured."  
  
"It's still early," Mycroft replies, his gaze shifting to the man on the bed, "and he's already proven himself rather durable, hasn't he?"

 

* * *

  
  
**7:06AM**  
  
Feeble pressure suddenly answers the tight clasp of Sherlock's fingers around John's hand. Eyes snapping open, he looks down at the bed and meets a groggy, half-lidded gaze the fathomless blue of a predawn sky.  
  
"Hey," John croaks, soft and slightly off-kilter, his tongue flicking out to scrape across his lower lip.  
  
"Hello," Sherlock returns, smiling as he leans in closer to the bed. He is struck by a mental image of the tableau of sentiment that his face must be at the moment, but after considering it for a millisecond, he finds he doesn't care.  
  
The hand in his grasp is warm and the space inside his chest somehow seems too small to contain his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following [prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129058822#t129058822) posted by Kingtyrell on the Sherlock BBC Prompting Meme: "Sherlock next to John's hospital bed pleading with him all through the night to hang on. "
> 
> The set-up with John getting shot in the leg by a man named Winter and Sherlock breaking down is very loosely based on Doyle's "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs." The title is drawn from the poem "Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden. Sherlock's emotional progression is intended to roughly follow the Kübler-Ross stages.


End file.
